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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

The German company Sonnenbatterie [sonnenbattery.com] has launched a trading platform for distributed renewable energy [technologyreview.com] by offering a way for owners of small solar and wind generation capacity to buy and sell power across the utility grid.

The trading system, which will launch in early 2016, is available via subscription to anyone on the German grid. The system will give solar owners an alternative revenue stream when they produce more power than they can use, but the company’s ambition is to establish a virtual alternative to the utility grid. Sonnenbatterie CEO Boris von Bormann calls it the “Airbnb of energy,” with community members trading energy as their needs and grid conditions warrant.

Sonnenbatterie’s platform joins a handful of other programs for trading distributed energy. The Dutch platform Vandebron [vandebron.nl], for example, has more than 38,000 subscribers. Consumers pay a monthly fee to contract directly with suppliers of clean energy for a set amount of power over a set amount of time. Consumers get to choose their specific energy supplier; producers get to name their price.

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